The Portal of Evil, PoE proper or simply PoE was a website that specialized in cataloging strange, shocking, or otherwise amusing web pages, and was described as "the Yahoo! of the weird". PoE was founded and maintained by Chet (of Old Man Murray, then an employee of Valve Software). It closed in February 2011.[1]

The site had several sister sites, including POE News, specializing in odd and unusual news stories, and POEtv, a video repository portal with a similar slant (yet, all videos must remain 'Safe For Work'); both sites were still running as of July 2011. Most sites on the PoE Network incorporate lively discussion forums.

Though the sites listed on POE ranged from religious extremism to sexual fetishes, the large number of furry fandom-related sites listed on POE, along with the often harsh comments passed upon said sites in POE's forums, caused it to be branded by some as an anti-furry site.

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Contrary to popular belief, the great majority of PoE members did not organize attacks on the websites listed on PoE. Rule #1 of the PoE forum rules, also known as the Prime Directive (or PD for short), stated: "Do not contact the site listed. Do not email the site owner. Do not post in their guestbooks. Do not post in their forums. If the site owners want to interact with visitors from PoE they can come to these forums." PoE members were to keep their criticisms of the site to the PoE forums, even if the site owners posted to PoE of their own accord.

Occasionally, casual visitors to PoE reacted to featured sites in a way that violated the Prime Directive, e.g. by privately contacting the site's owner, posting rude messages on the site's guestbook, or otherwise causing the owner to alter or even shut down his or her website. Sometimes this was done maliciously by people opposed to PoE, in a deliberate attempt to make the site and its members look bad; such behavior, was against the forum rules, and people were banned for this.

Most Portal of Evil posters didn't make direct contact with featured furries, due to the PD. However, furries often posted to Portal of Evil for a variety of reasons, most often to defend themselves or some aspect of the fandom. Furry webmasters also frequently visited the site, and many furry site forums on PoE had large post counts due to flamewars between furries and PoE regulars. The 2 forums are a good example.

A few regulars, however, were furries. Some tried to conceal the fact, for fear of ridicule from their fellow posters, while others managed to gain a large post count while still openly admitting their furriness. The reaction from other forum posters tended to depend on the attitude the furry took toward PoE.